San Francisco just elected a new mayor, voted to close the Great Highway, and ousted a high-profile supervisor. The race for City College of San Francisco board of trustees was less high-profile, but it ended with a significant vote of confidence to preserve continuity at the sprawling school, which has been under stress for years. It serves nearly 40,000 students, mostly for free.
Three incumbents running for their seats won: board president Alan Wong, Aliya Chisti, and Luis Zamora, who was appointed in September. Longtime Ohlone College history professor Heather McCarty will join them.
But continuity doesn’t mean certainty. Starting in 2012, CCSF nearly lost its accreditation for a lack of financial accountability and other institutional deficiencies. Nearly a year ago, the same state commission issued a new warning, citing problems with the Board of Trustees itself and ringing more alarms about the school’s survival.
The new board will have to choose a new school leader. Chancellor David Martin left this summer after disagreements with the board over finances. Current chancellor Mitchell Bailey is holding the seat on an interim basis.
Based on campaign statements and interviews, the trustees now seem aligned on several big issues: how to keep accreditation, grow enrollment, and maintain CCSF as a community college for degree-seekers and people who just want to take classes.
(Disclosure: This reporter is taking courses at CCSF this semester.)
Here are five questions to help sort out what comes next for San Francisco’s main community college.
Is CCSF accreditation in danger again?
In January, the state’s Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges issued a warning to CCSF, and much of it was about the Board of Trustees itself.
Among the charges: The board doesn’t properly consider long-term implications when making financial decisions or follow its own policies and bylaws. The commission also said the board interfered with the chancellor’s attempts to implement policies.
Martin, who took the high-turnover job in 2021, and a contingent of the board fiercely disagreed over finances. Martin pushed for cuts, which the board didn’t want, leading to his departure this summer.
CCSF has until March to respond to the ACCJC’s warning by offering fixes and a plan to carry them out by 2027.
What are those fixes?
City College leaders are slated to have the response to ACCJC ready for a board vote in late January. Interim Chancellor Bailey will also introduce a mid-year budget adjustment for the board to consider in January.
“Work continues to remedy the issues outlined in ACCJC’s findings, and revisions to policies and procedures are ongoing,” Bailey wrote in an email to The Frisc. “Additionally, the college is undertaking efforts to resolve structural deficit issues and enhance long-term financial planning and sustainability efforts.”
We need to demonstrate that we’re making real solid actions to maintain a financially stable institution.
,CCSF board of trustees president alan wong, who was just re-elected
Board president Wong added that the board has formed budget and policy committees to work on the response and has had “internal conversations” about making changes to ensure “all policies are followed.” A permanent chancellor search will also begin by the end of 2024.
“We need to demonstrate that we’re making real solid actions to maintain a financially stable institution,” Wong said.
Is tuition still free for San Francisco residents?
Yes, but the future of that arrangement is in question.
To recap: In 2019, the city and the college entered into a 10-year agreement to funnel the money generated from 2016’s Proposition W to the free tuition program, which had a successful run as a pilot.
In the aftermath of the 2017 accreditation crisis, a tuition-free CCSF also created a much-needed spike in enrollment.
But City Hall is now staring down a budget deficit, and the “Free City” program could be in jeopardy. City Hall gave CCSF $19 million in 2023-24 to cover tuition, but it cut that figure in half for the 2024-25 fiscal year. And more cuts are coming. (SF isn’t obligated to give City College the Prop W money, which comes from property sales taxes.)
Mayor London Breed’s staff told Wong earlier this year that free tuition would only apply to classes that contribute to a defined educational goal, starting in July 2025. It’s unclear what will come of that proposal under Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie.
“If we don’t protect the free tuition for all our classes, that will obviously discourage enrollment at a time when we need it most,” Wong told The Frisc. “People come to City College, whether for workforce training or transferring to a four-year [university] or lifelong learning. If we only allow some classes to be covered like this, that will disrupt the education plans of students.”
Re-elected board member Chisti, who previously worked at City Hall to administer the free tuition program, said “Free City is part of our culture and is for everyone,” but added that the threat from City Hall could signal a need to shift more funds to low-income students, which would help keep them enrolled as they pursue a degree or other goal.
What’s the long-term budget outlook?
CCSF currently has a balanced budget, but it expects a growing growing deficit in the upcoming years. Without intervention, it could jump from $171,000 next year to $8.4 million by 2027-28.
CCSF is currently receiving funding for more students than it has due to a state provision that stabilizes funding when enrollment dropped during COVID. But due to that arrangement, the state is not applying the cost-of-living increases to the college starting next academic year. In other words, funding will freeze as costs rise.
But if it adds enough students, it can once again get more state funding to account for higher cost of living.
“Either way, City College will likely have flat revenue for several years while we’re trying to grow enrollment,” said Wong.
Without a fast rise in enrollment, CCSF will likely face more cuts and may have to dip into reserves. Its available fund balance is currently around $24 million, according to Bailey.
How many students does CCSF need to stabilize finances?
A decade ago, the college had about 61,000 students. During the 2023-24 academic year enrollment was just under 40,000.
That’s a precipitous drop, but there is some positive news. This fall, 19,500 unduplicated students enrolled in credit courses. It’s a 9 percent jump from the previous fall semester, according to Chancellor Bailey. (This number is in contrast to the duplicated student measure, a different accounting measure, and does not include non-credit students.)
But to lock in future cost-of-living funding increases from the state, CCSF needs another 8,000 full-time-equivalent students, and that will take a while.
“Gaining 8,000 FTEs will be a multi-year process and will need to be a combination of new students and increasing the number of units taken by existing students,” Bailey told The Frisc. The college has hired a marketing consultant to garner more interest for the spring 2025 semester.
The trustees and administration are discussing ways to grow enrollment, even without additional funds. One idea is to shift resources toward classes and departments with the biggest demand, such as English, math, and chemistry. Another idea is forgiving debt from non-tuition fees to let those students re-enroll, and a new registration system.
The college also has an outdated, frustrating registration system. A new one could help boost enrollment, and the board vetted contractors, but Bailey told the board there wasn’t enough staff to make the transition.
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